The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which has been championing the Richtersvelders’ land claim for almost a decade, announced on Thursday it would no longer be acting for the community.
The news follows last month’s decision by community leaders, acting against the LRC’s advice, to sign a settlement agreement with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.
In a speech on his budget vote in Parliament on Thursday, Erwin said that by opposing the agreement, the LRC was trying to ”snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”.
”It is a matter of regret that the LRC [which] has done so much to support the community now seeks to derail the settlement against the wishes of the elected leaders,” he said.
”I am quite certain that their counsel in this case is now ill-advised.”
LRC national director Janet Love said in a statement that the organisation was bemused by these comments, as the LRC had told the committee of the community’s representative association that it was withdrawing.
This was because the LRC did not want to hold a position different to the community’s on a settlement it regarded as ”ill-advised and prejudicial”.
Nor did it wish to derail the settlement process.
She said the LRC was extremely proud of its achievements with the community that included a victory in the Constitutional Court against ”obdurate” opposition by the government.
”The LRC has indicated to the community that it wishes it well, and is seeking a meeting with the community to ensure that there is efficient transfer of legal services to the attorneys chosen to represent the community in future,” she said.
The LRC said earlier that under the settlement the transfer to the community of mining rights to diamond fields currently being exploited by Alexkor was dependent on a future joint venture in which Alexkor as 51% partner would have the stronger hand.
Another problem, the LRC said, was that the terms of the joint venture were not finalised in the agreement.
However, Erwin told journalists at a pre-speech briefing on Thursday that if the venture did not work out ”then we still have to transfer the mining rights but we’ve got to find a different mechanism”.
”What we are committed to, and we want this to be clear … we will meet our obligation that they get the mining rights.”
The joint venture was the quickest way of achieving this, and had the added advantage of giving the community access to income from Alexkor’s sea mining operation, which was not part of its land claim.
He said uncertainty around the claim had placed Alexkor in a very precarious financial and operational position.
”Time is now of the essence otherwise we will have no option but to mothball certain of the activities and dispose of non-core assets on a commercial basis,” he said.
Erwin said he had been immensely impressed by the Richtersvelders’ determination and courage ”in the face of vastly superior resources”.
The state has spent about R50-million on fighting the community’s claim to the strip of land along the Namaqualand coast currently being mined by Alexkor, and restitution for the diamonds taken from it over generations.
The case, currently before the Land Claims Court, was suspended last year to allow the community, government and Alexkor to negotiate a settlement. — Sapa